"You go to war with the factions you have, not the factions you wish you had."

- Gothmog

This post is meant to get discussion going, not to be an exhaustive compendium, and I welcome input from other playtesters and new players alike. Having gotten that out of the way, here goes:

As others have pointed out in threads on WotR strategy, it helps to play the game around what cards you possess in your hand. There's no way to know at the start of a game whether you will quickly draw all the healing/corruption cards and have an easier time focusing on the Fellowship or get a bunch of solid combat effects and nifty events to help you militarily.

In Warriors, it can be hard to play in defiance of what Faction cards you draw early in the game. Rush Strider to get the Dead Men in play without any of that faction's cards in your hand, and you may have locked yourself into an expensive bluff.

Every faction need not see play. You may find that sprinting to Mordor requires most of your action dice, but bringing in the Eagles might be worth it since you hold the Eagle card that lets you move the Fellowship (Lifted Up, not the Fly, You Fools promo). Again, spending a Muster (or Recruit) action to bring in a faction and keep your options open isn't a bad idea, but if you make a point of doing so without a plan for using that faction, you're spreading your action dice thin.

The Faction Event decks are different from WotR's two decks in one significant respect. There are mechanisms for card-cycling and, unheard of until now in WotR, recycling. The five non-faction-specific cards in each Faction Event deck offer a means to capitalize on a faction's unique abilities with greater intention. If you are fortunate enough to get the Fellowship safely to the Grey Havens to play The Western Way, it can be quite deflating to watch the Shadow player recoup Black Sails from the discard pile using His Will and His Malice and use it again to painful effect.

Managing your Faction Event hand and deck is almost a game within a game. I look forward to getting my copy of WoME on the table to refresh my memory of just how to do it!

IMO, it is almost always using a muster die to get a faction in to play early in the game. The extra action (albeit sometimes weaker action) you get every turn after that makes up for the lost muster die. If you mustered the wrong faction (because a of a lack of info), you can still use the die you got from that faction to muster a better one.

I'd agree with Raf. WIthout the cards the factions are nowhere near as useful, and if you just farm for Ent cards while getting all the good Army of Dead and Eagles Cards you are asking for trouble.

I'd add that as the Shadow player it may be more helpful to get the Southrons and Easterlings in to get access to the Corsairs. They can turn the tide early at Minas Tirith, and are helpful in making up losses from the Army of the Dead, or even getting there before Strider shows up. I've been burned wanting to get them in but not having the Southrons ready.

Corrected: Call to Battle can still be helpful even without faction cards.

IMO, it is almost always using a muster die to get a faction in to play early in the game. The extra action (albeit sometimes weaker action) you get every turn after that makes up for the lost muster die. If you mustered the wrong faction (because a of a lack of info), you can still use the die you got from that faction to muster a better one.

I agree, get your first faction on turn one or two just to maximize action die even if you don't have the cards for the faction. It will also help you with cycling faction cards or playing them to keep your faction hand size down. Don't go all in on your first faction hoping to get its cards, but if you've got nothing else to do mustering extra units for it is better than nothing. I'd prioritize playing faction cards/mustering other factions with the faction die. I'd say you should always muster your first faction unless your giving up a superior action die to get it like Aragorn/Gandalf the White/Witch King. I'd prioritize your first faction over moving a nation down the political track unless your doing that to get Saruman that turn.

This battle of the die gets really interesting with LoME. If SP rolls three total mustering action die, SP would likely muster Saruman, but that last mustering can be used to get Dunlendings or the Balrog. Both give an extra weaker action die, I'd currently favor Dunlendings if the fellowship isn't able to declare through Moria, but the Balrog die does have a character, mustering and draw card action on it. Activating the Balrog can also be quite good.

FP can face a rarer, but similar & tougher choice of having to go for an Elrond/Galadriel keeper dice or their first faction.

The offset of this strategy is whether the Fellowship remains undetected. It's exceedingly rare to have Gandalf or Strider in position to get Ents or Dead Men before Turn 3, so unless a successful hunt with reveal takes place the Free Peoples can't bring in the Eagles. This also keeps the Spiders out of play as well. The Free Peoples can declare in the wilderness (or maybe in Dimrill Dale), but there's not a compelling reason to do it during turn 1 without ridiculous fortune in movement, and a declaration during turn 3 won't get the Faction die until Turn 4 unless there's a reveal during a Hunt.

I try to get 3+ fellowship movements the first turn where you usually face 0-2 eyes and keep moving if I'm facing 2 or less eye dice on turn two. If there are 3+ eye dice on turn two I'll try to get Ents or Deadmen (Strider in Helms Deep) into play or crown Aragorn. One of these is usually possible by suiciding/seperating Gandalf if I have a WotW or separating the correct companion(s). I'll often have to use 1-2 elven rings on the first two turns, but the Gandalf keeper dice can really help with one of these plans and save me elven rings. I didn't put much priority on getting Gandalf/Aragorn until turn 3-4 before WoME, but if the fellowship hasn't left Rivendell its important to get your first faction somehow on turn two unless the fellowship can move like crazy against 1 eye.

I have pretty bad luck with early low chance hunts succeeding and drawing reveal ties and in about 50% of my games I get revealed off of Rivendell before the end of the second turn which means this whole strategy doesn't apply.

One game of WoME + LoME where my fellowship was luckily avoiding hunts and reveal tiles forced me to reevaluate my fellowship strategy. I used to always declare through Moria at 4 or 5 movement if I wasn't revealed. IMO, you shouldn't declare off Rivendell until you reach Mordor before SP has already summoned one faction and Witch King is already in play. I often try to separate Aragorn first. You might consider doing it without these conditions if you can declare into Lorien and have Mirror of Galadriel or can declare through/around Moria to separate Aragorn to Minas Tirith if he is needed there. Its often better to stay on Rivendell and send Aragorn to Dol Amroth though. Spiders are just the best SP faction with two cards to hurt the fellowship, SP tends to have one or both by the time you reach Mordor and can potentially redraw them from the discard pile. Spiders are really good in military combat too.

Every turn you spend on Rivendell is a turn where you could draw swift boats/the western way/separate companions to put nations to war card and are protected from a bunch of SP character cards.

That is interesting. I tend to do the exact opposite in my first turns. Usually I don't move the FSP at all but instead use my first character dice results to separate Strider to bring him into position to be crowned.

These are my reasonings:- The least dice you can use to crown him is two (one to separate and one to crown). Separating him right from Rivendell needs only two additional dice. Unless you are really unlucky with getting the needed WW result, those should be easily offset by the earlier Aragorn die.- You have to stop in Moria anyhow, when you separate him. So the only ways for him to be separated right into one of the three crowning spots is:a) to declare in Lorien after moving the FSP five times, moving another step and then separating him (you don't want to declare willingly into the wilderness around Lorien (SP hunt event cards, spiders, hunting witchking) and you definitely don't want to be revealed through moria (drawing an additional tile)) orb) separate him right to Dol Amroth after moving the FSP six times.Both should take several turns moving the FSP, so you get the important additional die much later or not at all if the SP has already conquered the crowning spots by then.- You can drop of another companian in Fangorn on the way to Minas Tirith to rouse the ents (I typically use a hobbit to do this but might reconsider this with the new event card connected to them). This gives you another early additional die. Thats also the easiest way to get that faction die in my eyes. Gandalf the White usually takes a few turns to turn up and you don't want to willingly get out of Rivendell to recruit the Eagles. The Dead Man are even harder to get, because you have to move farther and you definitely want to crown Aragorn before recruiting them. Once he joins them you can only get him to a city with one of the two Wraiths of fear cards and you want to use those to drive the SP off not just move the Deadmen so you have to wait even longer for that moment when you can do both at once.- It is easier to take the Forest Road route, because you can just move over the Caradras, if you are revealed on move 4 or 5. If you still have Strider with you by then you definitely don't want to do that because he will most likely never be able to get from there to Gondor anytime soon.- You don't risk losing him to a successfull hunt, the Balrog extra draw or a SP hunt event card.